Report: The CIA Performed Human Experiments on Prisoners Under Bush

Shocking New Report: The CIA Performed Human Experiments on Prisoners Under Bush

A new report details how the effects of torture on detainees were closely studied in order to perfect ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’

June 7, 2010 |

Over the last year there have been an increasing number of accounts suggesting that, along with the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” torture program, there was a related program experimenting with and researching the application of the torture.

For example, in the seven paragraphs released by a British court summarizing observations by British counterintelligence agents of the treatment of Binyan Mohamed by the CIA, the first two of these paragraphs stated:

It was reported that a new series of interviews was conducted by the United States authorities prior to 17 May 2002 as part of a new strategy designed by an expert interviewer….

BM had been intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation. The effects of the sleep deprivation were carefully observed. [emphasis added]

The suggestion was that a new strategy was being tested and the results carefully examined. Several detainees have provided similar accounts, expressing their belief that their interrogations were being carefully studied, apparently so that the techniques could be modified based on the results. Such research would violate established laws and ethical rules governing research.

Since Nazi doctors who experimented upon prisoners in the concentration camps were put on trial at Nuremberg, the U.S. and other countries have moved toward a high ethical standard for research on people. All but the most innocuous research requires the informed consent of those studied. Further, all research on people is subject to review by independent research ethics committees, known as Institutional Review Boards or IRBs.

In the U.S., there was a major push toward more stringent research ethics when the existence of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was publicly revealed in the early 1970s. In that study nearly 400 poor rural African-American men were denied existing treatment for their syphilis, and indeed, were never told they had syphilis by participating doctors. The study by the U.S. Public Health Service was intended to continue until the last of these men died of syphilis. When the study became public the resulting outcry helped cement evolving ethical standards mandating informed consent for any research with even a possibility of causing harm. These rules were codified in what has become known as the Common Rule, which applies to nearly all federally-funded research, including all research by the CIA.

One Response

Shouldn’t U.S. Service Personnel and Veterans get back those Constitutional Rights that they die for and convicted rapists and murderers keep?

Convicted rapists and murderers are given protection from human experiments by the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, Amendment Eight. In 1992 the U.S. Senate signed and ratified the United Nation, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).[3] Its 1994 Index, “… Article 7 – Freedom from Torture, or Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.” notes that, “Written policy and practice prohibit the use of” [prison] “inmates for medical…..experiments.”! Nineteen (19) times cited are the U.S. Constitution plus its Eighth Amendment’s no cruel and unusual punishment.

“The Feres Doctrine should not be applied for military personnel who are harmed by inappropriate human experimentation when informed consent has not been given.” Then, “During the last 50 years, hundreds of thousands of military personnel” were subjected to “experiments that were designed to harm”, i.e., the 1994 U.S. Senate Report’s biological and chemical agents, radiation exposure, hallucinogenic and investigational drugs, experimental vaccines and behavior modification projects.[5] In 2011 still ignored is this and their also noted past and present, “III. Findings and conclusions”, “K. DOD and DVA have repeatedly failed to provide information and medical followup to those who participate in military research…” and “N. Participation in military research is rarely included in military medical records, making it impossible to support a veteran’s claim for service-connected disabilities from military research.” This is the withheld needed for diagnosis and treatment but experiment identifying evidence. Underlying this Senate Report is the General Accounting Office (GAO) Sept. 1994 U.S. House Report, “Human Experimentation Overview on Cold War Era Programs”![4]

In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1950 Feres case a death due to a 1947 Army barracks fire was determined to be an “incident to service”.[1] In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1987 STANLEY a DOD 1958 “to harm” drug experiment is swept under the same cover of “injuries that `arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service.”[2] FIFTY (50) TIMES it cites the Feres Doctrine. Not once mentioned is the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, Amendment Eight!

In 2005 some in Congress made an attempt to get the biological and chemical portion of this withheld needed for treatment evidence, e.g., H.R. 4259 the “Veterans’ Right to Know Commission.” It died! It is now a from 1944, 67 years of U.S. Congressional talk with no Feres Doctrine [1] and its STANLEY [2] “to harm” correction. During the 1994 reported past, hundreds of thousands of the “to harm” service records were destroyed in a 1973 National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) fire. Then Congress’s 1974 Privacy Act censored experiment verifying witnesses from any surviving and future records! Overlooked by many in Congress is their Oath of Office to defend the U.S. Constitution, our “Pledge of Allegiance” “with liberty and justice for all”, their U.S. Constitution Eighth Amendment protection of convicted rapists and murderers [3] with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ignored, carved in stone over its entrance, “EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW”!

As in the GAO and U.S. Senate’s reported past, these “military research” [5] “incident to service” [1] activities are conducted under the ongoing secrecy cover of our ‘national interests’, e.g., WWII, Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. Do not the U.S. Senate’s stated Department of Defense (DOD) “EXPERIMENTS THAT WERE DESIGNED TO HARM” [5] continue? Please hold your members in the U.S. Congress accountable for giving back to those that serve their Constitutional Rights!

[3] 1994 – U.S. State Dept., “U.S. Report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights July 1994, Article 7 – Freedom from Torture, or Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.” See “Index of “1994 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”

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